Watson climbed on to his high stool, still observing his visitor.  For a good many years now, Fenwick had been always well and carefully dressed—­an evident Londoner, accustomed to drawing-rooms and frequenting expensive tailors.  But to-day there was something in his tired, dishevelled look, and comparatively shabby coat, which reminded Watson of years long gone by—­of a studio in Bernard Street, and a broad-browed, handsome fellow, with queer manners and a North-Country accent.  As to good looks, Fenwick’s face and head were now far finer than they had been in first youth; Watson’s critical eye took note of it.  The hair, touched lightly with grey, had receded slightly on the temples, and the more ample brow, heavily lined, gave a nobler shelter than of old to the still astonishing vivacity of the eyes.  The carriage of the head, too, was prouder and more assured.  Fenwick, indeed, as far as years went, was, as Watson knew, in the very prime of life.  Nevertheless, there was in his aspect, as he sat there, a prophetic note of discouragement, of ebbing vitality which startled his friend.

‘I say,’ said Watson, abruptly, ’you’ve been over-doing it.  Have you made it up with the Academy?’

Fenwick laughed.

‘Goodness, no!’

‘Where have you been exhibiting this year?’

’At the gallery I always take.  And I sent some things to the Grosvenor.’

Watson shook his head.

’It’s an awful pity.  You’d got in—­you should have stayed in—­and made yourself a power.’

Fenwick’s attitude stiffened.

’I have never regretted it for a single hour—­except that the scene itself was ridiculous.’

Watson knew very well to what he referred.  Some two years before, it had been the nine days wonder of artistic London.  Fenwick, then a newly elected Associate of the Academy, and at what seemed to be the height of his first success as an artist, had sent in a picture to the Spring Exhibition which appeared to the Hanging Committee of the moment a perfunctory thing.  They gave it a bad place, and an Academician told Fenwick what had happened.  He rushed to Burlington House, tore down his picture from the wall, stormed at the astonished members of the Hanging Committee, carried off his property, and vowed that he would resign his Associateship.  He was indeed called upon to do so; and he signalised his withdrawal by a furious letter to the Times in which the rancours, grievances, and contempts of ten chequered and ambitious years found full and rhetorical expression.  The letter naturally made a breach between the writer and England’s official art.  Watson, who was abroad when the whole thing happened, had heard of it with mingled feelings.  ’It will either make him—­or finish him!’ was his own judgement, founded on a fairly exhaustive knowledge of John Fenwick; and he had waited anxiously for results.  So far no details had reached him since.  Fenwick seemed to be still exhibiting, still writing to the papers, and, as far as he knew, still selling.  But the aspect of the man before him was not an aspect of prosperity.